In a way I think you’re doing yourself a disservice by deferring feelings you have about departed loved ones in the hopes of seeing them at the big get together. Why not rather pause each time you remember someone (family or not) who has died and recognize that they DO live on in those moments. They live on in YOU and help shape the individual that you are. Why can’t that be enough? After all, what’s the purpose of having these goofy bodies? Existing.
I’m not sure that’s really fair. Some people do get stuck, but I think plenty are able to accept that their loved one is gone and move on with their lives. They just hope to catch up with them later. 
Yup. It’s a coping mechanism. I don’t see the harm.
I don’t need to see anyone again. Being an Atheist means I accept this simple fact: When you die, that’s it. Game over.
I’m not sad about this. It doesn’t scare me. I just accept the fact you have one shot at life, you live it to the fullest and try to leave something behind for the generations that come after you.
Yes it sucks to loose someone you loved, but that’s how the game is played. There are no winners.
Then you die, the lights go out and your body becomes worm food. End of story.
What I don’t get is people who believe in an afterlife being afraid to die. If it’s all roses and dead family members why aren’t Christians all involved in uber-dangerous activities hoping to bring on death?
Why morn the loss of someone AT ALL? It should be cheered. The news of someones death should be the happiest day for Christians.
“YEAH! Little Billy bite the dust. Good for him. He’s in heaven now. God I hope I’m next!”
Why should they pray to make people better when they get sick? Shouldn’t they be praying for God to kill them, end their pain and take them to heaven where they live forever in happy tulip land?
If I truely believed in an afterlife I’d wake up everyday wishing it was my (and everyone I loved) last on earth.
“Please Jesus. Let mom get caught up in some stray drive-by bullet fire. And let sister get hit by a car and please make a plane fall from the sky and nail daddy in the brain. And please give the guy who threatened my life in the parking garage the courage to go though with ‘breaking my neck and killing me where I fall’. Thanks, Love and kisses. Amen”
I mean, around 80 years on earth and then the rest of forever in heaven? Seems like Christians would be looking to get those earth years over with as quick as possible.
Could we not extend this for everyone? - seems to me that this is the strongest argument for universal salvation (except that you first have to assume there is an afterlife, which could present a problem):
If everyone I have ever known or heard about isn’t there, I’ll notice them missing and be sad.
If this is taken care of by wiping sections of my memory, then I won’t be me.
But you can do the same with:
I like beer
If there is no beer in heaven, it won’t be heaven
If I am changed so that I don’t like beer, I won’t be me anymore.
So much for trying to apply logic to the idea.
Obligatory nitpick: it’s possible to be an atheist and believe in an afterlife. It’s just far more common that a belief in an afterlife goes hand-in-hand with that in a God.
Anyway, we mostly just deal. We don’t have a hell (PI) of a lot of choice. Though obviously a few people go to option (2) go mad or commit suicide or (3) convert to a religion.
Please explain. Are you using some different version of atheism that I’m not cognisant of?
I was using what I thought was the standard definition “One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods.”
So someone who believes in an afterlife not created by a God could still be an atheist. I don’t know if there are such people, but I wouldn’t be surprised considering some of the new age crap some people, including atheists, believe.
I wish all atheists were completely rational and skeptic of all supernatural beliefs but afaik that’s not quite the case.
Eeeenteresting, I’ve never considered that before.
So belief in some new-agey sort of amorphous metaphysical jelly could be consistent with atheism, because it’s not actually a “god”.
I suggest maybe we need to redefine the term…
IIRC some buddhists consider themselves atheists and believe in reincarnation. But don’t quote me on that yet.
How would you define atheist? I mean, the word is ‘a-theist’ = not-theist’ (Uh, or something. Latin dopers, help?)
As “doesn’t believe in anything without convincing evidence”? I’d like to use the word ‘skeptic’ or similar, but the trouble is that man people disagree that god is such an unsupported belief.
My, and I hope most atheists’, position could be best described two-fold: “there is no convincing evidence for God” and “I don’t believe in things there is no convincing evidence for” but I’m not sure of appropriate words.
I don’t understand the purpose of this thread…
The subject itself is a contradiction.
Having no belief in an afterlife, how would they have an obvious need to see anyone?
Those loved ones exist in time. That time is not now, nor is at any point in the future, nor any point in those billions of years before their birth.
This is the nature of time. I cannot change this any more than my inability to fly like Superman, regardless of my desire or need that this be so.
I am happy, nonetheless.
Wow - this stopped me in my tracks. Well said.
Siddharta believed, or so it is written in the Tripitaka that if there were gods, their lives were much like those of man’s: full of desires, therefore full of dukkha, only much longer than a human life.
Buddhism itself (at least of the Therevada variety) doesn’t even ask the question of whether or not there might be such a thing as a god, because it’s not relevant to the philosophy.
It also doesn’t accept the exact same idea of reincarnation that the Hindu religion does, because one of the main principles of Siddharta was impermenance. There was no such thing as a permanent soul; the human was made up of the five aggregates (one of which is karma) which do exist beyond death and can be recombined with each other in new and unique ways. So if you died, you wouldn’t really be reincarnated, your aggregates would get mixed up with other aggregates and ‘return’ in different people, either further ahead or behind on the path to nirvana than you were before you died. If you had somehow reached nirvana (enlightenment) in your life, you would exist until you burned off all your karma and at the moment of death reach parinirvana and be no more.
Again this is specific to what I know of Therevada Buddhism, which is not the same as all the other sects of Buddhism. Originally there were, after Siddharta’s death, 18 sects. Now there are probably as many types of Buddhism as there are Buddhists.
The fact that I don’t believe in an afterlife or any other sort of mystical continuation of existence following death makes it easier to deal with loss. People are gone, period, and if I want to live normally in whatever time I have remaining, I must cope with the grief and get over it. Seems to me that the constant dream of seeing lost loved ones in a few years or decades would be a distraction and a hindrance to the healing process. But that’s just me, I know. Someone paralyzed with grief may need the dream to stay sane; that’s not me.
traditional polka (public domain)
Thanks. I know I should have looked that up, but I just knew someone would come along and explain it.
Close friends, relatives, and mentors in my life have all died. While they were alive, they were good company and significant developing forces in my life. Now, they are daffodil fertilizer. They are missed, certainly, but seeing them again would serve what purpose? When I die, I will not care to see them again, or for that matter, care about anything at all.
For me, believing in hell gives me hope that one day all those who have wronged me during my life – whether it be the jerk who cut me off on the way to work, the telemarketer who calls me at 5:30 PM right when I’m sitting down to dinner, the people who send me spam e-mail, or Osama Bin Laden – will suffer an eternity of pain and torment. In fact, my belief in hell is all that keeps me from going out and buying Ak-47 some days and wreaking a little “divine vengeance” on my own.
My question is how do atheists get passed this obvious need to see bad people get what they so richly deserve? It’s obvious that they won’t all get punished during their lives, so there HAS to be a Hell or else the universe is just unfair.
I know some “Christians” will ask what if they are not in hell? Well if these people are not in hell then it would not be hell to me.
Regards,
Barry
Guess what?..